Saturday, June 21, 2008

Top Dems Hand Bush Key Victories

By Jason Leopold
June 21, 2008

In November 2006 when Democrats won control of Congress for the first time in 12 years, Rep. Nancy Pelosi explained the significance behind the record voter turnout that helped shift the balance of power in Washington.

“People voted for change and they voted for Democrats who will take our country in a new direction,” Pelosi said during a victory speech in San Francisco on Nov. 8, 2006.

Read on.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Democrats Legalize Bush's Crimes

By Robert Parry
June 20, 2008

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims that a key positive feature of the new wiretap “compromise” is that the bill reaffirms that the President must follow the law, even though the same bill virtually assures that no one will be held accountable for George W. Bush's violation of the earlier spying law.

In other words, in the guise of rejecting Bush’s theories of an all-powerful presidency that is above the law, the Democratic leadership cleared the way for the President and his collaborators to evade punishment for defying the law.

Read on.

US-Backed Offensive Hits Taliban

By TheRealNews.com
June 20, 2008

Afghan and NATO troops, backed by helicopter gunships, launched a massive counter-attack against Taliban militants occupying villages near Kandahar.

Read on.

Israel Accepts Gaza Truce

By TheRealNews.com
June 20, 2008

Israel officially has confirmed that the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire deal between the Israeli government and Hamas would go into effect.

Read on.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Bomb Iran? What's to Stop Us?

By Ray McGovern
June 19, 2008

Unlike the attack on Iraq five years ago, to deal with Iran there need be no massing of troops. And, with the propaganda buildup already well under way, there need be little, if any, forewarning before shock and awe and pox – in the form of air and missile attacks – begin.

Read on.

Europe Gives Bush a Cool Good-bye

By TheRealNews.com
June 19, 2008

Public reception to the last European tour of Bush's presidency was less than warm in the UK earlier this week.

Read on.

Hamas Declares Truce with Israel

By TheRealNews.com
June 19, 2008

After months of failed negotiation, while 400 Palestinians and 7 Israelis died, Hamas has announced a cease-fire with Israel.

Read on.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Kandahar Braces for Taliban Offensive

By TheRealNews.com
June 18, 2008

In anticipation of a Taliban offensive, the Afghan army flew four planeloads of soldiers to Kandahar from the capital Kabul.

Read on.

The Semantics of Bush's Torture Policy

By Jason Leopold
June 18, 2008

The Bush administration built a legal framework – relying on semantics and secrecy – to subject detainees at Guantanamo Bay to brutal interrogation techniques and then to hide the reality from human rights observers, according to internal government documents.

The documents, made public by the Senate Armed Services Committee, undercut assertions by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials who have blamed cruel treatment of detainees on "a few bad apples" who acted on their own.

Read on.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Kucinich Comments on Impeachment

Interview by Dennis Bernstein
June 17, 2008

Bernstein: Let’s cut to the quick and tell us what you see as being at the core of your call to impeach the President and the Vice President.

Kucinich: An attempt to destroy constitutional governance by violating numerous constitutional provisions, U.S. code and international law, taking us into a war based on lies, making a false case for the war, saying falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that it had the intention of attacking the United States, that there was a readiness to imminently attack, pursuing policies of torture, illegal detention, wiretapping, spying, rendition. I mean, there’s…you know these articles…

Read on.

Bush/Cheney Transcripts Subpoenaed

By Jason Leopold
June 17, 2008

A House committee has subpoenaed FBI transcripts of interviews with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney regarding their possible roles in the exposure of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued on Monday to Attorney General Michael Mukasey in the latest chapter of a standoff over what Bush and Cheney told a special prosecutor about the case in 2004.

Read on.



Izzy Stone, Patron Saint of Bloggers

By Jeff Cohen
June 17, 2008

It was nineteen years ago this week that I.F. (Izzy) Stone died. The legendary blogger was 81.

Confused? You say he died years before web blogs were invented?

Read on.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Finally, Congress Looks at Plame-gate

By Jason Leopold
June 16, 2008

Five years ago this month, an extraordinary battle was taking shape in the shadows of official Washington: a former U.S. ambassador was preparing to go public to challenge a central deception used by the White House to justify invading Iraq – and the Bush administration was readying a fierce counterattack against him.

Now, after many nasty clashes – which led to the exposure of a covert CIA officer, a criminal White House cover-up, a special prosecutor investigation, the conviction of a senior aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and a subsequent presidential commutation – one key administration insider finally has agreed to testify before Congress.

Read on.